Changing a fundamental mechanic

Fun > Math, that is true.
However, math needs to be as high as possible too, to get fun high enough. The math is my job.

What you are mentioning has been taken in account from the start. The difference in speed, range, durability/agility and accuracy do not affect the issue. And in general, there is one formula that works for several expands.

The reason that I am posting this, is because the fun is decreasing when using the special weapons. Playtesters say that they feel a certain unit is to powerfull or to weak.
I want every unit to be useful, no matter what version.
With 2 types, the special weapons are over powered and the only ones staged, on the field, once the players notice this power.
With 3 types, there is a good balance. Players try out any thing. And any thing works well. So they keep using any thing.
However, the game is designed to expand to 4 types or beyond. But then the special weapons are weaker. Clearly after adding a fourth type, the special weapons are gone. No one likes to use them because they don't really add to the game from this point.

It is truely only the damage output of these weapons. Not the range, nor the speed, or any other factor. That has influence on the game. I did do one other play test with the damage being about 3 times higher while having 4 types. Results are some what of a balance in the use of units.

Off screen, I had one other suggestion from a buddy. Mathematical speaking, still not a solution. But a good target. Of course with viewing the play tests.

Option 6 - When using a number of types in the game. Any special weapon can have an extra factor. Thus all costing the same. You simple do double or tripple ammount of damage. Depending if we are facing 2 or 3 types.
Although a type could have any number. So I need to see how much this affects the math.

Obvious the question was to hard since there is almost no back ground explained. I am bad at that sort of thing. Sorry for that.

I tried to keep it fundamental to the damage value's only. I guess, I should rephrase it first.

@ ruy343
Yes, MtG has imbalances. Even though a lot of people like the game. In my region, it is... ehm, gone? This due to the imbalanced fact. Where I am from, people stopped liking the game. And the shop closed the doors.

Regarding the RTS games. I do have the RPS system already in place. I was just looking for a way to implement special weapons.
The one you described is very familiar with me. However, in a game that gets expanded constantly, a bonus versus target disappears into the background. Eventually a player has better options in countering certain units by using normal weapons instead of the special.
It is that problem too that I am facing.

Players don't use the special weapons when I provide them with plenty of choices.

Ok, the damage values that I use in a simple way:
This is an example of the first game.

anti infantry is 1
anti vehicle is 9
anti tank is 36

The corresponding armor is also 1, 9 and 36.
The health is simply 3 times the armor count, 3, 27 and 108.
The lowest value counts when comparing damage and armor. Thus resulting in:
anti infantry against the 3 armor gives 1, 1 and 1
anti vehicle against the 3 armor gives 1, 9 and 9
anti tank against the 3 armor gives 1, 9 and 36

The costs of these weapons are 50, 150 and 300.
In other words, a player often has 6 anti infantry, 2 anti vehicle and 1 anti tank weapon.

When you shoot a tank with anti infantry, you only do 1 damage. You need 108 shots. But regarding the costs of this weapon, thus using 6 rifles. You need only 18 rounds.

When you shoot infantry with an anti tank weapon, you once again only do 1 damage. You only need 3 shots. But with the costs of the armor of infantry, the opponent has 6 of them. Thus you need 18 rounds again for defeating them all.

If you have your weapon exactly on target, it is 3 shots and 3 rounds.

The special weapons are not added yet.
I guess a special anti infantry weapon has 2 times 1, 0 and 0
A special anti vehicle weapon has 2 times 0, 9 and 0
And a special anti tank weapon has 2 times 0, 0 and 36

The bonus of x5 that you mentioned. I have x2 with the current design as you can see.

With the special weapons you only need 1,5 rounds. Or an infinite.

Special weapons are worth the while since a dead squad can't harm you. So if it dies twice as fast, it only returns half of the intended damage.
However, not being able to harm other types. It results in using them only when the situation arises (2 types, 1/2nd of the time, 3 types 1/3th of the time.)
When we add more and more types, these situations become less and less.

@ let-off studios
The table that you mention. I used that before. But looking up on a table caused a lot of trouble. Thus I devised the mechanic as described above in this post. 2 numbers, a damage value and an armor value. The lowest is the true damage.

But I think that you have a point in there. I guess you mean that a special weapon will be having a list of damage values on its own. Thus perhaps I should think of that and then simplify it?

@ Larienna
Regarding your second post.
The special weapons are not special abilities. With special I mean that they do extra damage against one type compared to normal weapons.

@ Larienna
Regarding your first post.
I can post some simple battles if you like.
However, I hope you are satisfied if I only post the numbers regarding outcomes?
Or would you rather see the complete process of a beginners battle? And what actions they take?

I think the last.

1 round battles to give a general idea.
Where one is slow
and one is fast.
And one is very fast.

Since they are very basic, there seems to be a lot of useless randomness at first glance. More advanced battles are supplied with event cards. In those you have a bigger impact with a smaller amount of randomness.

The stories are that both armies are standing right next to each other. There is no movement possible. There are no terrain influences. In those cases, the shortest range actually shoots first. Normally, you attack someone from a distance.

Example 1
***18 Rifle Infantry and 12 Grenadiers against 6 Battle Tanks***

Only the statistics that are worth mentioning for this example:
Rifle Infantry has
1 damage
1 armor
3 Health
2 Range

Grenadier has
9 damage
1 armor
3 Health
1 Range
And has a durability of 6/4th. Thus an extra dice roll for determining a hit on a grenadier. 4 or less is still a hit.
And has an accuracy of 3/6th. Thus an extra dice roll for determining a hit on an opponent. 3 or less is still a hit.

Battle Tank has
36 damage
36 armor
108 Health
2 Range

Note worthy is
that the Battle Tank actually only does 1 damage against any infantry unit.
The shortest Range goes first when fighting in range.
The infantry player places the rifle infantry in front of the grenadiers. The rifle infantry serve as meat shield. The grenadiers are still in range to add to the fight.

Only 1 round.
Grenadiers shoot first. There are 12 of them. 12 dice are used to see how many hit. First the accuracy round: 532534653253 is thrown. 3 or lower will remain.
6 dice remain.
Now a normal miss/hit/critical hit roll is applied.
1 or 2 is a miss, 3 or 4 is a hit and 5 or 6 gives a double hit.
254235 is thrown. The number of hits remains 6.
The damage is 9 for each Grenadier. Thus the total damage is 6 x 9 = 54 damage on a Battle Tank. 54 health remains on this Battle Tank.

The rifle infantry and the Battle Tanks may shoot. This goes simultaneously.
Both only have the M/H/CH throw.
18 rifle infantry throw 18 dice: 262626352213413145; 15 hits.
6 Battle Tanks throw 6 dice: 344251; 5 hits.

The Battle Tank obviously only has an extra 15 damage. 39 health remains.
A total of 5 damage against the rifle infantry means that 1 will die and another one has 1 health remaining.

Example 2
*** 24 Grenadiers against 8 Grazers (Humm-Vee/Ranger hybrid) ***
Grazer has
1 damage
3 multiplier (3 shots a round)
9 armor
27 Health
2 Range

Noteworthy is that a grazer normally crosses around on the map.

Only 1 round.
Grenadiers go first.
24 dice. Accuracy first, 3 or lower is a hit:
16436126
15454264
26151164; 10 hits.
MHCH roll: 1636325623; 11 hits.
11 x 9 is 99 damage. With only 27 health. 3 Grazers die and 1 is heavy damaged. 9 Health remains on that one.
Still, 5 are remaining.

Its their turn now.
5 Grazers with 3 bullets each is 15 bullets.
This time the durability of the grenadiers has to be taken into account. 4 or lower is a hit.
16426
43542
36161; 10 hits
MHCH roll: 6164543636; 14 hits now!
With only 3 health each. 4 Grenadiers bit the dust. One remains with 1 health.
Overall, the Grenadiers did a better job. But a good reminder is that the Grazers could actually out range the Grenadier in general. The Rifle Infantry often pose a bigger threat.

Example 3
*** Just 1 Rocket Launcher against 1 Rocket Launcher ***
The Rocket Launcher has
36 damage
2 multiplier (2 shots a round)
36 armor
108 Health
6 Range
And has an accuracy of 5/6th. Thus an extra dice roll for determining a hit on an opponent. 5 or less is still a hit.

Both players go at the same time now.
First an accuracy throw:
A throws 31; 2 hits
B throws 65; 1 hit
Now the MHCH throw:
A throws 46; 4 hits!
B throws 2; 0 hits!

A wins without even dying. B dies completely.

***

Now, regarding the special damages in these examples. Especially the first one. You can tell that if each unit would have a yes or now effect. The grenadiers are worth the least in the first example, yet the most in the second. In the first they would do 0 damage, in the second they would kill of 7 out of 8 grazers.

It is balanced. But imagine that the first example occurs more and more. While the second one occurs less and less. While the game is expanded with more choices of units.
In a way, I should turn that 7 into a 8 dead grazers. But only if the game is bigger.

@ Larienna

For a board game (a hobby none the less)
The players use a little bucket with a max of 36 dice. The dice are thrown in a box. Each roll reduces the number of dice for the next roll. The last roll could increase the number. Well, there wont be a roll after that one in most cases.

An average of 3 rolls, there are reports of 9 rolls. There are also simple 1 roll battle's.

Sorry for double post.

The board is a hexagon field. Each hexagon has a side of 4 cm. And the units are 2 x 2 cm cards with a picture on it. I don't use things like Risk like pions/tokens etc.

It might sound strange. But the pile of cards is sufficient to play with. Of course we have group cards as well for those units that give a lot of units. We are using that technique for about 2 years now.
A group card with a miniature white board. Where the whiteboard has written a N=##. Meaning the group card contains N units of that kind.

When some die and another one leaves the group cos of the damage. N is simply reduced.

I don't know of a better way to track stuff, since I am not an expert in game designs. This was the best I could come up with.

One hexagon has a Rifle Infantry group card with a white board on top. Plus a Grenadier group card with a white board on top. And the 5th card is the owner colour.
The other hexagon has a Battle Tanks group card with a white board on top. And the 3th card is the owner colour.
8 cards in total.

After the battle, both piles also contain a single card of the damaged unit. Plus another whiteboard. And both piles have an action point on top now.
14 cards in total now.

I did not use a prefix number of group cards like, 6 or 10. Since this would be to much hassle. Having a white board along where N is written down served us much more.
The pile of Battle Tanks is often one with each separate. Since they take damage and are on their own with their own damage tracker.

I hope you get the general idea now.
And just 2 sides for an unit doesn't work for the game.
Of course if you know a better way. Please let me know.

Yes, it was indeed annoying handling them in the beginning. However, I made them 1.2 mm thick. This means that you can pick up the pile including the one at the bottom. I call them cards since I don't know the exact word for a thick cardboard piece to play with.
The size of the hexagons also help. There is plenty of room to have 3 piles.

Hidden information is possible by turning the cards up side down. However, my game mechanics are in such a way that hidden information wont last long. Thus I do have the possibility to use both sides of a card.

Colored cards was an option in the past. I had to choose for giving the player colour, or the type colour. I went with the type colour for faster recognition when watching a pile. The reason is also that with a pile of cards for 3 players is still usable for 6 players.

The number 18 is very important for strategy. Better yet, a normal squad has 36 if it comes to Rifle Infantry. As described before. 1 Group card with a N on a second "whiteboard" card is also 18. Players know that they simply have to multiply 18 with M (= multiplier =1 regarding rifle infantry) = 18 for the number of dice that are fired.
I do have to remind, that an infantry unit has 3 health.
A simple flip wont do as if it would have only 2 health.
If you know something for 3 health, please let me know.

But then again, health of 27(3*9) and 108(3*36) is also in play. How to track that?

All that I use is paper and plastic. I used to play with folded paper for counting health. But that got damaged really quickly. And it required to much handling.

*****

Regarding special weapons. I did compile a list of type combinations and the highest factor. Just like how my friend suggested.

Those that are a round number or can be decided with dice are extracted from the list. 1,333/1,5/2 etc. I have a lot, really a lot of different combination options. But I am still facing the fact that expanding means a change in information.

The best way to implement this is designing the special units in the same way as normal units. With the exception of the "Special" or "S-" tag to the weapon.

A sniper has M=6 But could have M=3+S3

There are now several options for the players:
- They can ignore the S tag and use the units as if they are normal. Meaning the S part can hit any thing, including inlogical situations like a group of dogs beating a super heavy tank.
- They can apply the S for all the units. And look up in a chart which factor the player may use. I think it is better to apply this factor for a combination of designs. Thus one for a Duniverse, one for a RAverse, one for a KKNDverse etc. And also make it so that it is a round number any way. So no 1.3333 where the player has 1 normal dice and 1 dice with 2/6th a chance that it is a hitting projectile.

Having this S- addition does not take away the fact that snipers still blow up barracks. -.- In fact, they get stronger regarding the new rules. In KKND Snipers blow up tanks as well :).

Perhaps having organic/mechanic tags is better in a way. But then I need to do the same. Design one list of units and structures. Then decide on the factor. Limiting certain units to certain combinations is not what I am looking for. I still would like to see different RTS universes pitted to each other.

I have added a new way to my game for using "special"/"specific" weapons.

At this moment I am testing this for 3 types of armor:
-> low, medium and high.
I didvided these types into 2 groups:
-> units and structures.

For the current set of armor/weapon types. The "specific" factor is 3 (it was 2). And when I add more types, it will be 4 or even higher.

I simply indicate the "specific" with S-# where # is the number of dice that are going to be specific against a certain target.
If the weapon is specific to be aimed at structures, the tag is SS-#.

So, not only is the weapon specific at units or structures. But also at low, medium or high.

With a factor 3, there still seems to be an overkill though. However, this only happens at very specific situations.

Example:
If you have Snipers, you need to have an Event Card to give them enough focus for aiming at the infantry, who are hiding behind walls.

When this is done, the Sniper will not kill 0.83 (walls), but 3.33 Infantry units. (Used to be 2.5 Infantry units. And before that 1.67)
To be precise in dice, 3 dice for a normal attack plus 9 dice that are only used against Infantry.

The same goes for attack dogs. However, they do not even have a normal part of their jaws. So they can only kill infantry. If there are walls or other units, they are completely useless now. Just like in the game Red Alert. But they have become cheap though :)

During play testing however, players still rather wait buying them until they have saved up certain Event Cards. But by then they might as well use the Event Cards on their normal units. Which are 33% effective at that point. (While "specific" units can be 100% effective)

How could I encourage players to use the "specific" units even more?

That might actually work. The free unit thing.

That way players are encouraged to get free units.
In a way forced to get them.
And they still can use them when needed.

*****

I was also thinking about another option. But while writing it down here. I have the feeling that I might as well discard it immediately.

Please tell me what your think.
And I hope you understand what I am posting here.

In the game there are already several ways of spending Action Points(AP). Some cost 1, some cost 2, some cost 3 etc.
In the game there are also Event Cards. One of them is also copied for AP to be spend on. Called Assault, however using the card means a cheaper assault than using purely AP.

I also have Flank and Back Door cards that enable players to attack from another side. This is important since you want to reach weaker units. Or you want to hit units that would receive a lot of damage from your weapons. It is those 2 cards that could make "Specific" units very deadly at the "rare" moments.

I could think of spending AP on an attack like that one. Even though this spending should be too expensive for the normal units. It also should mean an advantage for the "specific" units.

As a result, players will start rearranging their forces into more pure ones before dealing with the "Specific" units. Perhaps this enables players to open new strategies?

The only issue remains, how much for a Flank attack in AP?
+1 extra AP on top of the basic AP? Means the attack is twice as expensive. In other words, no matter what damage is done. In the total round, it will count as 50% effect. But the bonus is only about 150%. Thus the total effect will be 75%.
For the "Specific" units, this bonus is "300%". Thus the total effect will be 150%. Spending more AP would mean that the total effect will drop below 100%. Thus it would be of no use to the player.

This sounds logical at first. But when I expand the game with more types. The "specific" units are going to do more damage on target. This because the chance that the right target is selected will be less. Not only will the 2 AP be "cheaper" when used on "specific". The 2 AP also are cheaper when used on any unit. So the only choice then is increasing the AP costs for Flank, together with the "specific" bonus.

- Would players understand rules that are variable from one version to another?
- If I say that "specific" units have a bonus of 3 x the dice in one version. But 4 x the dice in another. Would they understand that? (my friends do, but do others?)
- The same goes for the Flank option. One version costs +1 AP, in another it is +2 AP.